


A Dangerous Disadvantage

by apliddell



Series: A Chemical Defect [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV First Person, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining, mid-HLV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 15:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2030472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apliddell/pseuds/apliddell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sherlock comes home from hospital, he and John have a little time together at 221B before going to visit Sherlock's parents and confront Mary and Magnussen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dangerous Disadvantage

I am dwindled. I am small. I am weak as a shadow. I am not danger. And yet here he is. Sometimes I'm dizzy with the incongruity of it. John brought me home from hospital last week, and in the scrap of time since then, we've settled already into a routine.

Of a morning, John descends into the kitchen in his pyjamas, and we pretend that I don't know he's been sleeping on the sofa (listening, keeping watch)(am both grateful and mortified)(he hears the nightmares; he must do). I haven't been up to his bedroom since before the hospital, but I know he preceded me in returning to 221B by several months. I doubt he ever went back to his little house in the suburbs. I don't dwell on that. We don't ask questions. We don't discuss. Apart from that, I can almost imagine that I am home. A place that isn't and never will be again. Because it bled out in an office estate in September. And just having these thoughts makes me ill. Grows the knot of horror in my stomach that I must repress.

I ignore it. I look into the fire or out at the snow and cradle the pain in my freshly unsplintered ribs. The pain in every breath that's like grief but isn't grief (perhaps there's grief in the cells of my bones)(romantic)(more so than ever, I cannot entertain romance, and it rises unquellably in me). My surrogate protector (it sounds a funny idea, but nearly anything can serve as armour, when angled correctly). Because I've squandered John, and I cannot have him (I can't have him, but I can save him)(almost as good)(Better!)(so much better!). The physical pain is like grief, and it isn’t grief. The pain shrinks and quiets on its own. It heals. There seems something bitterly unfair about that. The bullet wound and the broken heart were sitting about equally well for a time. And once I learnt to use the pain of the former to deflect the latter, it began to leave me. Bitterly unfair.

But I can dress myself now. I can bend and stretch. It aches, but I can. And I can play again. That remains a palliation. I can play my violin. I’ve been bashful to resume in front of him. John. Been sneaking little chances when he pops down to Speedy’s or to see Mrs Hudson or get something from the shop. I never have long. He doesn’t let me out of his sight for long.

I’m playing Clair de Lune at my usual spot at the window, when he comes in from an afternoon of shopping (Christmas shopping, I believe, going from the carrier bag he’s brought home)(back, I should say; he brought it back). I slow for a moment as John comes in, but decide to continue. John stands just inside the doorway, his mouth slightly ajar, his eyes fixed on my reflection in the sitting room window. He stares and stares, then checks himself, shuts the door behind him, and takes his chair.

By the time I finish, my heart is thumping wildly, and my mouth is dry. I lower my instrument very slowly and make for my chair, intending to sprawl in it to pluck and scrape at the strings (he doesn’t mind that, but it doesn’t make him look at me as if he adores me)(I nearly know well enough to say he doesn’t look as if he adores me)(how would that look?).

John stops me. “Could you play something else, please? It’s been so long. I. I really. I’ve missed it.”

Clear my throat. “Certainly.” I shuffle the music on my music stand, knowing already that there is nothing appropriate there. I ought to just play one of my Bach pieces.

Something I know forwards and backwards. But I make a meal of looking through the music at hand, then (as I knew I would) I shoulder my instrument again and pick up a little improvisation I’d been going through earlier in the afternoon. Start with a fluttery bit, meant to evoke snow flurries, then move into firelight, smoke curls, and finally starshine.

John sighs behind me as the piece unfolds. I resist the impulse to turn to look at him or to check his expression in the window. Instead shut my eyes and play on as long as I can.

I lower my bow when the ache in my side has become intolerable, but stand still with my violin still tucked under my chin until the last of the notes have died.

“Marvellous,” John says feelingly when they have. I make him a small bow and take my chair, with a smile. My face is hotting with the pleasure of his flattery, and I incline my head over my instrument to hide my flush.

“Thank you, John. It is good to play for an appreciative audience again,” I say. The resultant silence makes me think I must have misspoken.

“Was that the first you’d composed since. Since.” I look up at John. His forehead is creased, and his lower lip is between his teeth.

“Since the waltz,” I agree. “Yes. Though it was less a composition and more an improvisation. I must transcribe it some time. What I can remember of it. These things can be ephemeral sometimes.” I pause for a response but none seems forthcoming. “Sometimes it would do just as well to talk of transcribing a snowflake or a shadow.” I shrug my shoulders, and my side throbs. John is looking at his hands. I clear my throat. “If you don’t need me John, I think I’ll go to bed.”

John nods, his eyes still downcast. “Good night,” he says absently.

“Good night.” I rise from my chair and make for my bedroom, but as I pass John’s chair, he stops me.

“Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

“Sherlock?”

I turn to face him, and he looks up at me, deep lines between his eyebrows, his mouth downturned slightly. But he looks concerned rather than upset. “Yes, John?”

“Sherlock,” John clears his throat. “This. I. This sort of thing is. Is difficult. I find these things difficult.” He pauses.

I nod once. “Yes,” I say, my skin prickling with apprehension.

He reaches out suddenly and catches my hand, drawing me closer to him. “Sherlock, there’s been.” John clears his throat. “There’s been something I’ve been. There’s something

I should say. Something I’ve. I’ve meant to say always, and I never have. But.” He drops his eyes again, then raises them to mine and draws a long breath, “Sherlock-”

“Wait!” my heart is thumping faster now, up my throat and in my mouth, panic rising in me like bile. “Please, John. A moment. Please. Just. Wait. Please.” John starts at my voice and drops my hand. He nods once, his face falling blank and somehow still so expressive. I drop to one knee and catch at his hand again. “Just. Please John, please. Not like this. I. I can sort this for you, please. I have a plan. I’ll tell it all to you, just. Please let’s not yet. If we hadn’t. If I. If I hadn’t. Please, let’s just. Let’s wait. I’ll fix it for you, please. I’ll fix it all up for you. Just. Let me make it okay before we. Please. All right? Okay? I can. Please. Not yet. Just give me a bit more time? Please? I’ll fix it, only I need more time. I’m sorry. Please, John I’m so sorry. I just. I need just a bit more time. After Christmas? Please. I just. I need more time.” I should be all elation and relief, but I could not be more panicked. Because this is not a beginning. Not like this. A confession, a declaration in the middle of this impenetrable disaster (is it impenetrable? I am Sherlock Holmes, after all)(that is what I told myself before, and it nearly killed me). A declaration now is a farewell. And. I just can't bear it. Better to leave it unsaid than to have it spoken as our epitaph.

John lets out a breath I hadn’t known he was holding, and his nod is like a benediction. “Okay,” he says, squeezing my hand. “Let’s give it a bit more time.”


End file.
